#60: Testimony of a Former Atheist: Mary Jo Sharp
Hello thinker,
This is the final note in our apologetics series on the testimonials of former atheists who became Christians. Most of this material is based on the work of Dr. Jana Harmon. [1,2]
This month we hear the story of Mary Jo Sharp, a pastor’s wife, mom, and assistant professor of apologetics. She describes her journey as “Apatheism to Strong Belief.” Mary Jo defines apatheism as a worldview that doesn’t believe in God’s existence and thinks religion is irrelevant to life. You can view and listen to her testimony here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbvlq68kQiE (~9 minutes).
For those who would rather read about Mary Jo’s story, here’s my summary followed by comments on lessons learned for our own witnessing consideration.
Mary Jo grew up without God in an atheist family. However, her “rich cultural upbringing” and father’s fascination with cosmology caused her to think both philosophically and theologically. At an early age she said she “wondered at the vastness of the universe and . . . [began] questioning the meaning and value of life, and wondering what I’m doing here, and is this all there is.”
In Mary Jo’s high school senior year her music teacher felt “a burden” to share his faith. She notes, “This was the first time a Christian had talked to me about their faith . . ..” He gave Mary Jo her first Bible and told her that she will start asking hard questions about life in college and that he hoped she would turn to the Bible for answers. She said that this interaction “felt weird” because she did not know much about “Christianity [or] the culture of Christianity; I did not know that this [witnessing] is something that people did.” She admits she listened politely but was not particularly positive in her response. However, “he hit me at a really good time of my life in which I was open to those questions . . . and my long-term reaction was to actually read the Bible that he gave me.”
After much reading, Mary Jo was surprised and impressed by the historical nature of the book; it was not, as she initially thought, just a compendium of moral sayings. It also “made sense of my strong commitment to the idea of good and evil and right and wrong . . ..” She sensed that she now understood where her “sense of morality” came from – it came “from a God that is good.”
As a result of her surprising and positive reaction to the Bible, Mary Jo decided to explore faith in college. She began attending churches because she wanted “to see what they had to say about the Bible, [and] to just get more information.” She heard the gospel and it made sense to her, both logically and rationally. However, her eventual conversion was not simply intellectual, it was experiential as well; Mary Jo sensed the presence of the Holy Spirit. She soon put her trust in Jesus and realized that “he is the best answer for my biggest questions.”
Mary Jo’s church experiences were not all positive, however. She quickly became disillusioned by “the [hypocritical] behaviors of Christians” and grew distrustful of many believers. She realized, though, that she had to decide whether “the behaviors of Christians could be the litmus test” for Christianity. She came to believe, rightfully, that this could not be the case. Her “commitment to the truth of Christianity is to the person of God,” not to his sinful followers.
What might we learn from Mary Jo’s experience?
First, we must boldly engage those who we suspect do not know Jesus, just like her music teacher did with her. He felt “a burden” to share his faith. They shared a teacher-student relationship but he did not know her spiritual condition. This was the first time any Christian had talked to her about their faith and it occurred “at a really good time” in her life. While this started a journey that eventually led her to Christ, it is sad that no Christians had shared their faith with her until she was 18 years old.
Second, we often hear non-believers say that they reject the Church – and Christianity – because of the hypocritical behavior of believers. Logically, this makes no sense and we must tactfully and gently explain why. I once responded to such a statement by asking the non-believer the following: if her doctor encouraged her to lead a healthy lifestyle but, in fact, his own was unhealthy (e.g., he was overweight, had an unhealthy diet, and did not exercise), would she then reject the entire medical profession? She understood my point and admitted she would not. As Mary Jo concluded, the behavior of Christians – while oftentimes hypocritical due to our fallen nature – is not the “litmus test” for the truth of Christianity.
As we’ve seen in these case studies, every non-believer has his or her own story and unique questions of, or objections to, Christianity. I am grateful that these four atheists came to know Jesus, and did so largely because Christians reached out and talked to them in respectful and sensitive ways. I pray that we may learn from these non-believer journeys and become better witnesses in the future.
In Christ . . . and Merry Christmas!
Doug
Academic Director, Apologetics On Mission
[1] Dr. Jana Harmon is a Teaching Fellow for C.S. Lewis Institute Atlanta and serves as an Adjunct Professor of Cultural Apologetics at Biola University. Her doctoral research examined the religious conversion of atheists to Christianity; she studied the perspectives and stories of 50 former atheists. Jana received her Ph.D. from the University of Birmingham, England, and views apologetics through a practical, evangelistic lens.
[2] Dr. Harmon’s ministry is called, Side B Stories: https://sidebstories.com. You will find the videos I highlight in my notes on her website as well as over 50 podcast interviews of former skeptics (now Christians), including our own Ben Clifton, president of AoM!